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Philosophy Then

Evil Overruled

Peter Adamson considers explanations of evil in the context of slavery in nineteenth century America.

Today’s philosophers of religion devote considerable attention to the problem of evil: If God is both perfectly good and all-powerful, why do evil and suffering exist? This poses a considerable challenge to Jewish, Christian and Muslim (a.k.a. ‘Abrahamic’) theism, since if God is good, presumably he’d want to prevent evil and suffering, and if he’s all-powerful, presumably he’d be able to. The attempt to address this problem is called theodicy.

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